dovecot - Jun 2005 - LF not found where expected

I'm using Dovecot 0.99.13 on a fedora core 3 server. 
I keep getting these errors from time to time.
There user ends up retrieving no mail (but no error in their client, be it web
mail or pop3 client)
What usually fixes it is this procedure:
Cp mbox file to mbox_
Remove original mbox
Send a test message to recreate mbox.
Cat mbox_ >> mbox
Problem solved!

Can anybody tell me what causes this?

?pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:16:38 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:16:38 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:16:38 Error: Couldn't open INBOX: Internal error
occured. Refer to server log for more information. [2005-06-27 11:16:38]
pop3-login: Jun 27 11:17:06 Info: Login: mjmurray [64.203.167.125]
pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:17:06 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:17:06 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:17:06 Error: Couldn't open INBOX: Internal error
occured. Refer to server log for more information. [2005-06-27 11:17:06]
imap-login: Jun 27 11:17:28 Info: Login: mjmurray [127.0.0.1]
imap(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:17:28 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
imap(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:17:28 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
imap-login: Jun 27 11:19:12 Info: Login: mjmurray [127.0.0.1]
imap(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:19:12 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
imap(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:19:12 Error: Error indexing mbox file
/var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected


... Miles Mawyer -=- Webmaster . Centralva.net ... 
... mmawyer at rosecomputers.com ...
... 434.385.5053 ...

On 27.6.2005, at 18:45, Miles Mawyer wrote:
> ?pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:16:38 Error: Error indexing mbox file 
> /var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
These usually happen because the mbox file has two adjacent From-line, 
ie:

 From foo ...
 From bar ...
Message-headers: ...

That shouldn't happen normally though. Sounds like something is wrong 
with how your mails are written. Are all the software that are writing 
to the mbox using same lock methods?

Anyway, 1.0-test/stable versions of Dovecot can handle the adjacent 
From-lines too without failing.
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Thanks for the reply. I think I'd found the issue. It seems to be the empty
line that is ending up at the top of mail file.  I removed that blank line out
of one of the mail box files, and it started working without an issue.

I'm not sure what is causing the empty line in the mbox file however.  Most
of my clients use pop3 to download their messages through dovecot. Could this be
happening if the client only downloads part of their messages?

Pretty easy for me to straighten out, but I didn't know if this was a bug
that needed to be addressed.

 

... Miles Mawyer -=- Webmaster . Centralva.net ... 

... mmawyer at rosecomputers.com ...

... 434.385.5053 ...


-----Original Message-----
From: Timo Sirainen [mailto:tss at iki.fi] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 7:52 AM
To: Miles Mawyer
Cc: dovecot at dovecot.org
Subject: Re: [Dovecot] LF not found where expected

On 27.6.2005, at 18:45, Miles Mawyer wrote:
> ?pop3(mjmurray): Jun 27 11:16:38 Error: Error indexing mbox file 
> /var/mail/mjmurray: LF not found where expected
These usually happen because the mbox file has two adjacent From-line, 
ie:

 From foo ...
 From bar ...
Message-headers: ...

That shouldn't happen normally though. Sounds like something is wrong 
with how your mails are written. Are all the software that are writing 
to the mbox using same lock methods?

Anyway, 1.0-test/stable versions of Dovecot can handle the adjacent 
From-lines too without failing.

On 28.6.2005, at 15:48, Miles Mawyer wrote:
> Thanks for the reply. I think I'd found the issue. It seems to be the 
> empty line that is ending up at the top of mail file.  I removed that 
> blank line out of one of the mail box files, and it started working 
> without an issue.
>
> I'm not sure what is causing the empty line in the mbox file however.  
> Most of my clients use pop3 to download their messages through 
> dovecot. Could this be happening if the client only downloads part of 
> their messages?
Extra empty lines at the top is a known bug with 0.99.x's mbox handling 
code. The cause isn't known and the only real fix is to use 
1.0-stable/test releases instead..
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